Cloud's Family
by TheLadyMoon
Summary: Cloud ponders, late at night, about his family.


Disclaimer: I make no money, I own nothing.

**Cloud's Family**

The bar was empty by the time Cloud arrived home. His deliveries had gone far too long that day, and a dead phone battery meant that he hadn't been capable of informing anyone as to exactly how late he'd be home, though at least they knew he'd be late. He knew the bar was open late on Saturday so even without looking at the clock he knew, upon arriving to the desolate scene of a perfectly clean and quiet Seventh Heaven, that it was very, very late.

After dropping the day's receipts on his desk, now located in a store room behind the bar, removing his shoes, and propping his sword upon the wall, he went for a quick check of the house's inhabitants.

Shelke was sleeping stiffly on the bed in what used to be Cloud's office. She had only come to the family a couple months beforehand and was still uncertain of her final destination, so of course Tifa insisted that in the meantime she stay with them and adjust to life outside DeepGround.

In the upstairs room, Denzel was curled up safely in bed with a book, asleep and lightly drooling on the pages. Cloud had to give a small chuckle at the scene, knowing that if he were to ask in the morning Denzel would be adamant that he'd only spilled water on the soggy pages.

Nanaki slept peacefully on the bed nearby, having taken that spot a couple of months after Marlene made the choice to go and live with Barrett, who'd started to settle down. Nanaki had come for a visit one day and had simply not left. He and Denzel got along far too well, both being young boys (at least, for their respective species), and Tifa enjoyed having the company while Denzel was at school.

Cloud let himself ponder the odd group for a moment, briefly reminiscing over his life and those involved in his various families over the years.

First there had been just he, his mother, and his father. He could hardly remember his father at all as the man had died when Cloud was very young. More recently Cloud had been thinking about this, realizing that part of his aversion in the beginning to becoming a father figure was that he simply had no idea what a father did or where he fit in. He often wondered how different he'd be, as a father, as a man, as a lover, if only his father had been around long enough to set an example.

The next family he'd had was just him and his mother. For well over ten years it was just the two of them, her taking on every task, all of the work both inside and outside the home. It was a quiet life, a rather lonely life involving a lot of time at home by himself, and a lot of time lying to his mother about his problems or the various fights he was in as he simply didn't want to give her more to worry about. Lately he'd been pondering on this fact as well, noticing similarities between his mother and Tifa. They were, certainly, very different people. His mother was quieter and more reserved, wasn't as inventive as a cook or as good as a hostess, and certainly had a very different sense of humor. Unfortunately, though, the situations were far too similar as Tifa too had taken on most of the housework as well as for a long time brought in most of the money, and Cloud had always worried about burdening her with his problems as well. It was a troubling thought, but one Cloud had been forcing himself to consider, if only for Tifa's sake.

Cloud's next "family" had been with Shinra. In two years he was trained, tossed back and forth, beaten and rejected. He'd rarely felt a connection with anyone there, but then again he rarely felt a connection with anyone at all. Sure there was his mom who wrote to him far to much (and caused him to be teased a bit too often), and there was Tifa who he'd sworn to impress and protect and who he was ashamed to contact until he'd reached his goal, one that got further and further away from him.

There was also Zack. Zack was his fourth "family." They had hit it off pretty well and Cloud felt more comfortable with Zack than with anyone else he'd met, which was why he was so excited to be paired with him for the trip to Nibleheim. If he was going to face a town of bad memories and girl he'd let down he certainly wanted it to be with a person he trusted and could talk too. Heck, if he was going to be shoved inside a jar for several years he was pretty happy it was with Zack as well. While it was an odd and confusing time in his life, and while the memories he had from that period were spotty at best, he still felt a connection, a kinship, with this great man who was willing to die to save his weak and sickened frame. Zack was somewhere between best friend and brother, and the fact that Cloud still retained a bit of his personality and memories every now and then made the connection even more personal. In so many ways he wished his friend was here now to help guide him.

The next family was the biggest and most... colorful one. AVALANCHE, a group consisting of various people, and animals, and robots, from all walks of life, including two beautiful women fawning all over him. The memories from that time period were also sometimes spotty, but Cloud at least had his friends around to remind him of certain instances and all of the wonderful and horrid moments that had transpired. This was a time of grief, a time of war, a time of comraderie, a time or reckoning for all. It was a difficult time in his life, as it was in everyone's, and yet it provided him with more friends and family than he could even see himself having.

After the group separated he'd been a little saddened, and yet he wasn't alone. He had the girl of his dreams by his side, a girl he'd sworn to protect, a girl who's attention he'd finally obtained. And they, along with Barrett's daughter Marlene, began living together as a real family.

This was when Cloud realized he had no actual concept of families. He could blame his father's non-exitence in his life or his mother's silence or his lack of friends or siblings. He could blame Shinra for treating him badly and he could blame them for doing horrific things to him, burning his town, experimenting on him, keeping him locked up for years while the people he'd one day live with were out there suffering. He could even blame Zack for getting himself killed since if he were alive Cloud felt that his life would be so much easier.

But no, Cloud knew that as much as he could blame this person or that event, he himself was the one holding him back from his family.

For fear of losing them or hurting them, fear of getting too attached when they obviously wouldn't be around that long, fear of, well, everything.

If he'd known then what he knew now, if he'd known about the affects of Mako poisoning and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, then maybe he would have sought help and things would have gone better. As it was he'd often find himself at Zack's grave or Aerith's church, grieving for these great people who would've lived life so much better than he, people who he felt he could have saved but didn't.

While he could regret how he acted and felt for that first year and a half together with Tifa and Marlene, he couldn't regret the consequences.

While grieving at the church one day a boy with Geostigma had found his bike and collapsed beside it. If he hadn't been grieving he may never have met Denzel, the boy might have died, he might not be sleeping in the warm bed upstairs but instead be dead in an abandoned alley.

It sent a shiver down his spine to think about what might have been, but he told himself he must think about it, must realize that "what if's" didn't apply only to "what if I'd saved them?" but also to "what if I wasn't there to save him?", and that sometimes good things do come out of bad circumstances.

Cloud smiled softly then thinking about what life was like once Denzel came home. His family... he had loved them, so. Sure it wasn't the family he'd seen himself having when he was a child. In that family the children would look a little more like him, and Tifa wouldn't be working herself to death but would be sitting pretty with a war hero for a husband. No, it wasn't his dream, but it was damn close and he grew to love it just as much.

Then he got the Geostigma.

He wasn't sure what came over him then. He knew he was afraid of hurting them, just as he was afraid of giving Tifa even more work to do by having her nurse him (again) on top of everything else she did. To him it was a sign. He thought he'd been forgiven, thought he could go on with his life and finally be happy, but no, the Geostigma had to be a sign that it wasn't meant to be. It didn't make as much sense looking back at it but then again terminal illnesses on top of a lifetime of trauma could potentially make you act in odd ways. And so he left, feeling that it was his duty to fight this alone, to suffer alone, to die alone.

He didn't deserve a family anyway.

Less than a week later he was home, celebrating the cure of Geostigma, he and Denzel sitting on the back steps talking nervously, excitedly, about things they were planning to do together (chocobo races! sword lessons!), neither wanting to mention that this was the first time they'd planned anything and that they were both so excited just to be alive and have the ability to plan knowing you'd probably still be alive to do what you'd already planned to do.

And so this family continued onwards, it got better for awhile, then worse when Marlene left. This was perhaps when Cloud really noticed how much Tifa was hurting. It was another odd time in his life since, for awhile, he and Tifa had switched places. For a couple months she simply could not be everyone's backbone. In public she was still the same old happy Tifa, but at night she cried and ranted and held on to Cloud so damn tightly while at the same time pushing him away, fighting with him, screaming words and accusations she'd kept bottled up for years. It was a hard time, a trying time, and a time in his life when Cloud Strife realized that it wasn't just his family that was integral to him, but that he was in actuality integral to his family. The responsibility of it all came crashing down upon him, the guilt of leaving when Tifa needed him; the guilt of convincing her to raise Marlene when he knew, innately, that one day she'd return to her father; and the realization that the rest of his life, if he were to continue in this family, could very well be spent dealing with the incredible grief both he and Tifa had experienced and the grief that had yet to come.

It took all his willpower, and a few late night calls to friends such as Vincent and Cid, to keep him from running away again, from shunning his new role as Tifa's backbone and support. But they'd made it through, and even when their family morphed again, adding Nanaki and Shelke, they'd been able to handle it. In fact, they enjoyed it. Cloud was realizing he honestly enjoyed having a home full of life. No, it likely wouldn't last forever, and yes his family would most likely continue to morph, adding or subtracting members, but still... he had a family. He always had a family.

Cloud woke with a start, a noise downstairs jolting him from his unexpected slumber. He'd been leaning on Denzel's doorframe and apparently had dozed off. It was still dark out, he'd probably one been asleep a few minutes but he was certain he should probably check out that noise and then maybe spend a good 8 hours in bed.

Reaching the bottom floor Cloud gave a small shudder at how chilly it was compared to upstairs, then went around behind the staircase to the room he shared with Tifa. Upon entering he could see she wasn't in bed, and it took a minute for his sleep addled brain to process that she was in the adjoining bathroom as the light was on and the toilet had just flushed. He sat down carefully on the bed and waited for his love, bleary eyes settling on the half closed door as he listened to the faucet turn on, and then off a few moments later. The light suddenly flicked off and the door opened, a very tired and slightly ill looking Tifa appearing from the other side. She didn't notice him at first and Cloud recalled that the Mako made his eyes adjust to darkness faster than her's.

She jumped a little when he called her name, then smiled and held a hand out, letting him grab her gently and pull her to him, her eyes still adjusting. She sat beside him and leaned on his shoulder, half asleep already.

"You're late," she murmured, and for a second his heartbeat quickened, remembering those very same words being spoken but the very same woman, only in a very different scenario.

"I'm sorry," he whispered softly, calming himself and starting to pull both of them towards the head of the bed in hopes of getting a few hours shut eye.

"Long day?"

Cloud had to laugh a little at how tired she sounded and how she was still trying to make small talk.

"Yeah, but I'm not working tomorrow. Or today, I guess."

He saw her smile grow a bit and she leaned into him.

"Did your phone battery die again?"

"Yeah, forgot to charge it. Know where my charger is?"

Sigh "Cloud Strife, you'd be so lost on your own, you know that? And it's in the third drawer down in the kitchen, toward the back, behind the sandwich bags."

Cloud gave a halfhearted chuckle again. She was right, he'd be lost on his own. He needed his family in so many ways.

"You know," she continued, her smile morphing into a mischievous grin. "I just got sick. I've been doing that lately, in the early morning."

Cloud gave it a second to make sure he'd heard her correctly before responding.

"And you're happy about this?"

"Hmmm.." Her smile remained and she nestled in on his chest.

Cloud stared up at the ceiling waiting for her to continue but found instead that her breathing became more steady, signifying that she'd indeed fallen right back to sleep.

_Ah well, it doesn't matter_, he thought. _I'll just make her see a doctor in the morning or something. Funny thing to be happy about though._

His thoughts became more jumbled as he drifted off, his own deep sleep finally overtaking his exhausted frame.

As he fell into slumber, he couldn't shake the odd but incredible feeling that his family was going to change again soon, for the better.

**AN**: Just a little story written for the heck of it and only quickly reviewed once. I had planned something completely different so forgive me if this feels a tad jumbly.


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